Friday Full-Length: Beelzefuzz, Beelzefuzz
The self-titled debut album from Chesapeake Watershed progressive doomers Beelzefuzz (review here) was issued in 2013 through The Church Within Records. I remember it feeling like it was an excruciatingly long wait for the album to show up, both from their earlier demos and also just the record itself. The first time I’d seen them was Days of the Doomed II (review here) for a short set in June 2012, then again at Stoner Hands of Doom XII (review here) about two and a half months later. Comprised of guitarist/vocalist Dana Ortt, bassist Pug Kirby and drummer Darin McCloskey (also of Pale Divine), they made a formidably individualized impression on stage and on the demos they were giving away after that sampler set in Wisconsin (discussed here), Ortt‘s wide-eyed and effects-harmonized vocal conjurations, quirky style of riffing, and the guitar-as-organ sound that would become a Beelzefuzz trademark but never fully understood when it came to the eventual two albums they would release. If everyone could’ve seen them on stage, it all would have made a lot more sense.
I went back and looked over my review from when the eight-song/36-minute LP came out, and first of all, it was l-o-n-g. You think it takes me a long time to say what I’m trying to say now? Shit, right around 2012/2013, I apparently decided to take myself super-seriously and yeah. Wow. Anyway, digging through the verbiage, I at least acknowledged at the time that the album format inherently couldn’t capture the full impact of the band, since so much of the appeal was in watching Ortt‘s wizardry, backed as it was by the reliable and classic styling of McCloskey on drums, emphasizing the ’70s rock and prog elements of their doom. In 2013, I noted the album was full of promise, and I remember being particularly struck by how much heavier the guitar sounded than on the demos or live, that the chug in the final version of “All the Feeling Returns” carried more weight than it had initially, but fair enough. The album was full of promise. Listening to it now, I’m still a fan. I have a couple t-shirts somewhere.
It’s a shame on multiple levels that the band didn’t last, but among them is the fact that in this age of livestreaming and ready-made video-ness, they’d probably do pretty well playing “Reborn” or “Lotus Jam” or the seven-minute “Hypnotize” on whatever form of social media as a way to engage their fans. Ortt posts a solo track every now and again to Instagram and that’s cool, so maybe the band would’ve found a broader audience that way, but they also never really toured and didn’t seem inclined to do so, which is also fair. You’d probably have a hard time making a career out of Beelzefuzz. Silly name. Weird sound. Unless you’re ready to move to London, it’d be rough to make a go of it, and Beelzefuzz was well entrenched in Maryland doom. The fact that t
hey stood out from so much of it was part of what made their debut so exciting. In a scene that prided itself on traditionalism and following in the riffy footsteps of Wino, Al Morris III and others, Beelzefuzz represented a step aside from that in favor of something willfully fresh, still doom in its atmosphere and still plenty heavy — again, surprisingly so on this album — but ahead of its time in its proggier bent and standout songwriting.
A complicated series of events would eventually consume the band. You know all those killer ’70s heavy rock records that you listen to and think, “How was this band not huge?” Kind of the same thing here. Beelzefuzz fell first to a discord between Kirby and the other two players. I’ll spare you the links to all of this, but you should know they’re there. That split led to legal proceedings involving use of the name — imagine that for a second — and for a hot minute, that seemed like it was going to be the end of the band. Ortt and McCloskey regrouped as Righteous Bloom about a week later, and brought in Revelation/Against Nature bassist Bert Hall, Jr., and hell, that was exciting too. Hall is a low-end master and a rhythm section of him and McCloskey together was only going to result in warm, rolling groove excellently suited to Ortt‘s riffs. And it did.
Righteous Bloom began releasing tracks one at a time and eventually became Beelzefuzz again late in 2015. They brought in Greg Diener — McCloskey‘s bandmate in Pale Divine — and in 2016, released Beelzefuzz II: The Righteous Bloom (review here) through Candlelight imprint Restricted Release. Guess what? It was cool and didn’t get the attention it deserved. Maybe that fraught two years showed up a bit in their sound, the struggle and stress surrounding the band came through a bit in the songs, but not really. They showed a more progressive side of their songwriting and of course, solos from Diener were never going to hurt. Beelzefuzz simply rolled on.
They played here and there to support the album locally, in Maryland, Delaware, etc., and that was where their reputation was always based. I was fortunate enough to see their last show at Maryland Doom Fest 2019 (review here) and the love for them was palpable in that room in Cafe 611, Frederick, MD. A fitting sendoff if there had to be one.
The happy post-script to the 10-year run of Beelzefuzz is that Ortt wound up joining Diener and McCloskey in Pale Divine in time to contribute to last year’s Consequence of Time (review here), which was a doomly joy to behold, mixing the band’s longstanding traditionalist aspects with Ortt‘s quirk. That left Hall as the odd man out — Pale Divine already had an ace bassist/sometimes vocalist in Ron “Fezzy” McGinnis, late of Admiral Browning — but he’s apparently been working on solo material, as he’ll play April 10 at Cafe 611 with a bunch of others in a kind of early welcome-back-to-shows show. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t thinking about going.
Everyone’s alive, so there’s always a chance Beelzefuzz might decide to pick it back up and start anew, but even if that doesn’t happen, this record holds up easily to the eight years since it came out, and there’s nothing to make me think it won’t continue to do so as more time goes on.
As always, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.
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This week was a blur of email anxiety. I had notes to send to the Weirdo Canyon Dispatch staff for the Roadburn Redux thing — you’d be AMAZED at the people who flaked — and requests for interviews for that, and PostWax liner notes emails and then a couple people want to interview me as if I have anything interesting to say other than to complain, plus I wasn’t sleeping and everything had that the-universe-is-awful sheen from my glazed eyes. I managed to do two decent interviews though; the one that went up with Oryx yesterday and one yesterday morning I did with Domkraft that I’m going to try to get up next week.
Next week, also, is the Quarterly Review. I know. I’m stupid. But the week works and I’ll get through it. Honestly, with the big release day that today is — Greenleaf, Genghis Tron, Yawning Sons, Shiva the Destructor, Wheel, 1782, The Quill, and others if that’s not enough; was enough for me to just put those first two in my Amazon cart — it’s I’m hoping news chills out a bit next week and I can focus on the 10-albums-per-day thing. With my luck, festivals will probably come back.
Does it matter? Nah. I’m small potatoes. Low stakes to everyone except me if I don’t post whatever that thing is until tomorrow.
I need to remind myself of that.
Took a break just now to rearrange some furniture with The Patient Mrs. in our living. An old hangover lamp down to the basement, move the new rug, new shelves for The Pecan’s toys in, and so on. We’re having company for dinner — Slevin, in fact, who you’ll remember is the lovely chap who helped make this site go live in the first place some 12-plus years ago — and his Special Lady. It’ll be nice. We’re supposed to grill and slated to have high winds this afternoon. If that means I smell like meat for the rest of the evening, I’ll take the hit. Maybe change my shirt before bed. Maybe.
My family will return next week here. The room I’m in now — we’ve called it ‘the big room’ for at least as long as I’ve been alive; recall this house belonged to my grandmother/grandfather — is our dining room, a door out from the kitchen added on to the original house during a period of what I’ll assume was prosperity for my grandparents. Its wood paneling, circular red fireplace, vinyl floor and back bar are very much in line with my own aesthetic. We spend a lot of time out here. We lit fires all winter. Somehow that feels important to me, though I know all nostalgia and sense of ‘connection’ to a thing is pretend at best and damaging at worst. The more you cling to, the more you lose, and so on.
Oh, I also got pitched on a book project compiling I guess some of the best stuff from around here the last 12 years? Kind of a bizarre idea, but it might actually happen given who’s behind it. If you have any thoughts on what should be included, I’m happy to take requests. I have no clue where to start or end.
No Gimme show this week. Next week. So it’s that, QR, maybe Domkraft interview video and an announcement Monday that I need to confirm. Plus I’m recording interviews where I’m being interviewed I think on Sunday and Thursday, and I’m interviewing Steve Von Till of Neurosis tomorrow for a thing, and I need to set up a line with Tau from Tau and the Drones of Praise for another thing, plus find a time to talk with Mat Bethancourt about Josiah coming back asap and then I expect by the time I get through all that and 10 reviews a day by the end of next Friday, plus The Pecan — whose fractured skull is fine, by the way, genuine thanks to everyone who expressed concern — I will have burst an embolism in my own brain and I’ll just be dead. Fine. It’s how I always wanted to go: overwhelmed.
Great and safe weekend. If it’s Spring where you are, enjoy Spring. Don’t forget to hydrate and watch your head.
FRM.
Tags: Beelzefuzz, Beelzefuzz self-titled, Maryland, Maryland doom, self-titled, The Church Within Records
